Back in my days of trying to conceive, it did not take me long to learn that that blue dye pregnancy tests were never to be trusted.  BabyCenter, Fertility Friend, Pee On A Stick...you mention a blue test and they will all tell you the same thing.  Blue = BAD.  Whether it was the thickness of the line, the depth of color of the line, or whether or not there was a true plus sign, those things were considered extremely unreliable.  Visit any tweakers board and they will usually have a disclaimer that says that they do not tweak blue dye tests or if you came to them with a blue dye test to tweak, they would tell you to come back with a pink one.
When I was peeing on sticks, regularly, I always preferred FRER (First Response Early Response).  When that habit started to get too expensive, I would buy large quantities of cheapie Wondfos off of Amazon to satisfy my "craving".  Those tests sucked, but the pregnancy tests were pink and thus tweakable and considered more reliable than the blue dye tests.

After my last miscarriage, I regularly tested to see if my HCG levels were back down to 0 so that I could start trying again.  During that time, I made the mistake of purchasing a CVS brand pregnancy test.  I was in a hurry, it was on sale, and yadda, yadda, yadda, it ended up on my bathroom counter.  For the purposes of testing to see that my levels were back at 0, I figured it was ok.  When I took the test at that time, back came a thin blue line, which indicated to me that I still had some pregnancy hormones floating around.  Taking the same test two weeks later showed me a negative.  Case closed.  I still had one test left, though, which I stuck in the back of my closet for a future emergency.

About a week and a half ago, I started feeling a little bit off.  All of a sudden my nipples were incredibly sensitive, I developed a zit on my chin, I was terrible lethargic, and I started feeling crampy.  "You're getting your period!" you might think.  I would have thought that this might have been the case except for that my husband and I had unprotected sex (for the first time since the baby was born) and 2 days later I had some serious EWCM.  I was about 6-7 days out from there so I started to get a little bit suspicious that maybe,  just maybe, I was pregnant.  Oops.

I did what any normal, post-miscarriage surviving mommy to an almost 1 year old would do and dug into the back of my closet for any pregnancy test that I might have.  Poof!  CVS blue dye test, a cup of fresh pee, and an extremely nervous me, secretly holed up in the bathroom.  I checked the expiration date on the box and I will admit that it was just ever so slightly expired (only by 2 months).  I figured that it was better than nothing and I dunked the stick in.  I set it on the counter with a tissue over it like I did back in the old days.

Those five minutes of me sitting on the toilet, waiting for the test to finish, were agonizing.  Was I really ready for another baby if I were pregnant?  Could we afford another child right now?  Why didn't we use a condom?  Was my body ready for another pregnancy?  Where would we put the baby?  Would it be a boy or a girl?  Would I have to cancel my NYC Marathon entry...again?  How would I tell my husband?  Would he be happy?

Ding...ding!  After five of the longest minutes in my whole life, I pulled off the tissue and saw this...

Several years ago, a friend of mine, R, called me crying one evening when she realized that her daughter (who was several months at the time) had fallen off of her bed and hit her head on the floor.  She had called the doctor and answered a battery of questions whereby they determined that she would most likely be ok, but told her to watch her closely.  I rushed over to give any type of moral support that I could, although at the time, I was really not much help because I didn't have any kids of my own and had never experienced anything like that before.

I listened to my friend tell me that in the split second where she made the decision to go to another room, the baby just rolled right off.  She felt terrible.  She was worried about whether or not her daughter would be ok and was trying to pay close attention for any "out of ordinary" types of behaviors.  You would have think that I would have taken that experience and filed it in the mommy category of my brain for later use, right?  I guess there is only so much room up there for that type of info...

Over the past few weeks, I have not slept much.  B has been teething like crazy and pretty much has not slept at all (naps or nights).  This has caused me to go into a state of survival mode.  I am basically just crawling through each day and praying every morning that this coming night will be the night where he sleeps more than 3 hours, consecutively.  I have huge dark circles under my eyes that no amount of concealer will cover.

Yesterday when I got home from work, B was especially fussy.  It was about 85 degrees and humid in the house and feeding him was pretty miserable so we decided to go around the house and close all the windows so that we could turn on the AC.  After that I propped B up with some pillows in the corner of the couch and proceed to turn on the weather to see if the rest of the week would be so sticky.  B kept sliding down and I kept placing him back in the corner.  I ended up missing the future forecast so I grabbed the remote and proceeded to rewind to play it again.  In the few seconds that I was turned away, my baby managed to roll over at least twice and fell off the couch onto the floor.  I didn't even see him fall off it was that fast.  I just saw him lying on his side on the floor and heard him screaming.

In that moment, I was so shocked at what happened I didn't even cry right then.  I picked him up off the floor and hugged him so close, trying to console him.  He screamed and screamed with huge tears running down his face.  My poor baby.  How could I have been so stupid and careless?  I worked so hard to have him and I could be such an idiot to not be paying attention to him, the love and light of my life.

I first called my husband who let me know he was on his way home from Home Depot.  I tried calling my sister, who was at the gym with the car, but she didn't answer.  Then I called my friend R and asked her if she thought I should bring him to the ER (which would have been by ambulance because I didn't have a car at the moment).  She instructed me to call the pediatrician (who happens to be the same as B's) and answer their questions.

It seemed like an eternity before a nurse called me back.  B had already quit crying, had a massive poopy diaper, and was now giggling like nothing had even happened.  I had already taken him into the dark bathroom and made him follow a flashlight and made sure his eyes were dilating properly, which they were, thankfully.  She asked me the following questions (which may come in handy for you one day if you even have a momentary space cadet moment like me):

Did he cry immediately following the accident?  Yes.  He screamed bloody murder for 10 minutes until he was red in the face with tons of tears.

How high up was the couch?  Two feet or less from the floor.

What is the surface of the floor like?  Where he fell it is partial shaggy rug and partial wood floor.  He didn't make a loud noise when he fell either.

Does he have any visible lumps or red marks on his head?  His head is generally lumpy (like his Dad's haha), but nothing new that I felt.  No red marks on his head that I saw.

Did he vomit?  Not sure.  He spit up all over my dress while I was consoling him, but I am not sure how to tell the difference between vomiting and spitting up.  He had just eaten before he fell and has acid reflux, so this wasn't abnormal for him.

Was he grabbing toys like usual?  Yes.  He was grabbing toys, the spit up cloth, my hair...

What was his routine for the rest of the night?  Bath at 6:30 PM.  Dress, sleep sack, book, nurse.  Bed by 7:15 PM (hopefully).

What times does he usually wake up at night?  12 AM & 3 AM almost always (if not more).

She told me this...  Chances are that he was totally fine.  She said that babies his age are very resilient and that it probably hurt me more mentally than it hurt him physically.  That said, she told me to take him to the ER if I noticed any of the following:

• He seemed sleepier than normal, for example, during his bath if it was hard to keep him awake.
• He seemed fussier than normal.
• He started vomiting.
• We wasn't hungry and wouldn't nurse like normal.